Style Sheet – English and American Studies
You need to document all sources according to certain rules. Most of the people teaching at
the IEAS, will be fine with the MLA style. Unless they tell you otherwise (or provide you
with a separate style guide for your papers), you can use the MLA style. Within your text, you
add quotation marks to everything that you did not think of yourself. After that, you add the
name of the author and the page number of your quotation in a footnote or in parenthesis. The
full citation is in your Works Cited section at the end of your paper.
We have collected the most common types of citation that you will encounter during your
studies. All this is based on the seventh edition of the MLA Handbook. The “MLA
Formatting and Style Guide” of the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) is a good online
resource if you have additional questions.
Monograph/a book written by one author
Last name, first name. Name of the Publication. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of
publication. Type of publication.
Thomas, Ronald. Detective Fiction and the Rise of Forensic Science. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999. Print.
A book written by several authors
Last name, first name and first name last name. Name of the Publication. Place of publication:
Publisher, Year of publication. Type of publication.
Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia
Transl. Brian Massumi. London/Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987.
Print.
Edited volume
Last name, first name. (ed.). Name of the Publication. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of
publication. Type of publication.
McCann, Carole R. and Seung-kyung Kim (eds.). Feminist Theory Reader. Local and Global
Perspectives. New York/London: Routledge, 2003. Print.
Article or chapter in a book or anthology
Last name, first name. “Title of the Article or Chapter.” Name of the Publication. Ed. First
name last name of the editor. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication. Page
numbers. Type of publication.
Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution. An Essay in Phenomenology and
Feminist Theory.” Feminist Theory Reader. Local and Global Perspectives. Ed. Carole
R. McCann and Seung-kyung Kim. New York/London: Routledge, 2003. 415-427.
Print.
Jeßing, Benedikt. “Frankfurter Schule.” Metzler Lexikon Literatur- und Kulturtheorie. Ed.
Ansgar Nünning. Stuttgart, Weimar: Metzler, 2004. 195-197. Print.
Article in a journal
Last name, first name. “Title of the Article.” Name of the Publication. JournalEdition .number
(Year): Page numbers. Type of publication.
Anderson, Daryll. “Physicians as Detectives in Detective Fiction of the 20th Century.”
Southern Medical Journal 95.10 (2002): 1134-1139. Print.
Article in an online journal
Last name, first name. “Title of the Article.” Name of the Publication. Journal edition and
number (Year): Page numbers. Type of publication. Date of last access. URL (only if it
is an unknown website).
Kissane, James and John M. Kissane. “Sherlock Holmes and the Ritual of Reason.”
Nineteenth Century Fiction 17.4 (1963): 353-362. Web. 03 March 2008.
<http://xroads.virginia.edu/>.
Article on a website
Last name, first name. “Title of the Article or Chapter.” Name of the Website. Name of the
website’s owner or the cooperation responsible. Date of creation (if available). Type of
Publication. Date of last access. Short-URL (only if it is an unknown website).
Semel, Paul. “Crime-Show Procedurals for Dummies. A Step-by-Step Guide on How to
Watch TV Crime Dramas.” MSN Entertainment. Microsoft. Web. 20 Aug. 2008.
<http://tv.msn.com/tv/>.
Reference from a dictionary
“term” Name of the Publication. Volume Edition. Year of publication. Type of publication.
“consonation, n.” The Oxford English Dictionary. Vol III. 2nd Edition. 1989. Print.
Reference from a online dictionary
“term” Name of the Publication. Publisher, Year of publication. Type of publication. Date of
last access. URL (only if it is an unknown website).
“taxonomy, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, 2016. Web. 22 Mar. 2016.
Film
Name of the film. Director. Studio, Year. Type of Publication.
Angels in America. Dir. Mike Nichols. Warner Studios, 2003. Film / DVD.
Television series
Name of the series. Creator. Place of Production: Studio, Starting Year of Production. Type of
publication.
Castle. Marlowe, Andrew W. USA: Beacon Pictures, Experimental Pictures, 2009. Television
/ DVD.
Episode of a television series
“Name of the Episode” SSeasonEEpisode. Name of the series. Creator. Place of Production:
Studio, Starting Year of Production. Type of publication.
“Probable Cause” S5E05. Castle. Marlowe, Andrew W. USA: Beacon Pictures, Experimental
Pictures, 2009. Television / DVD.
Reference from an encyclopaedia
“term” Name of the Publication. Name of the Editor. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of
publication. Page numbers. Type of publication.
“Metafiktion” Metzler Lexikon Literatur und Kulturtheorie. Ansätze - Personen Grundbegriffe. Ansgar Nünning (ed.). Stuttgart/Weimar: J.B. Metzler, 2001. 429-430.
Print.
Reference from an online encyclopaedia
“term” Name of the Publication. Name of the Editor. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of
publication. Type of publication. Date of last access. URL (only if it is an unknown
website).
“Achebe, Chinua” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature Online. Jack Zipes
(ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Web. 23 Mar 2016.
There are a few things you should keep in mind when creating your Work Cited section and
when you quote in your text:
o The main idea of citation is that whoever is reading your paper can find the exact same
edition of the text that you had in front of you when you wrote your paper.
o You indent every line except the first one for each entry. All entries are listed
alphabetically.
o If a text has more than one author, only the first one is listed with its last name first (this
is done so that you can arrange the entries alphabetically). All other authors are
presented “First name last name”. (See the Kissane example)
o If you do not have an author’s name for an article (for example when quoting a
website), the entry begins with the title (all other rules apply).
o If there were other people involved (such as a translator or an illustrator) you can add
them after the title. (See the Deleuze example)
o A title always includes all subtitles. They are separated by a colon.
o Titles of independent publications are always in italics (books, journals etc.), titles of
chapters or articles are in quotation marks.
o English quotation marks are both above the letters: “Chapter Title”. German quotation
marks begin below and end above the letters „Chapter Title“. If the language of your
paper is English (as it usually should be) all quotation marks are above, regardless of
the language of the text you are quoting.
o If you have not used the whole book or journal, but just a chapter or article, you must
add the “Title of the chapter/article” and the page numbers. If there are no page
numbers (this can happen with online journals), add n. pag. for no pagination.
o Nothing in your Works Cited section is bold or underlined.
o Punctuation is part of citation. Pay attention to commas and full stops. Every entry ends
with a full stop.
o Take note that sometimes not all information is available for the online versions. Add
all available information.
o If you work with more than one text by an author, refer to the texts by using their last
name and adding the year of publication.